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Metaphysician Undercover

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By the way, I think this thread has developed into a very interesting discussion. Thank you StreetlightX, and others who have participated, for some v...
September 04, 2016 at 15:24
It would be ridiculous to think that neither the future is prior to the past, nor the past is prior to the future, when the concept of "future and pas...
September 04, 2016 at 14:33
What's wrong with Deleuze? I find him to be one of the very few modern philosophers who actually seemed to know what he's talking about. See, he is si...
September 04, 2016 at 08:28
Such a difference implies a necessary underlying continuity, sameness, and this is the underlying analog principle. My argument is that this underlyin...
September 03, 2016 at 13:06
In this example, the psi provides the material content, while the value assigned to it, is what has changed. "Psi" is unchanged, therefore providing u...
September 03, 2016 at 12:21
Yes, the continuum comes to be called such to distinguish it from the digital or discrete, but this does not imply that these are properly opposed. Th...
September 03, 2016 at 01:33
You may be missing the force of the argument SteetlightX. "The analog", continuum, or whatever you wish to call it, is the very same as the "thing-in-...
September 02, 2016 at 21:31
The real issue here, I think, is the question of whether the natural (analogue) continuum has any identity whatsoever. Aristotle identified it as the ...
September 01, 2016 at 10:57
I don't think so. I think that the whole of myself exists today, and the whole of myself existed yesterday, and the day before. I don't think of the s...
September 01, 2016 at 02:01
Surely there is sense in a relation of self to self. I can relate myself of today to myself of yesterday, and my potential self of tomorrow. By establ...
September 01, 2016 at 01:32
Yes, but the considerable point is that this "unique existence" involves a temporal extension. So the principle which allows us to say that the thing ...
September 01, 2016 at 01:23
As I indicated in the other thread, there are two distinct forms of identity. Wittgenstein (intentionally I believe) creates ambiguity with his use of...
August 31, 2016 at 23:33
In any discussion of identity, it should be noted that there are two very distinct types of identity, sometimes referred to as qualitative and numeric...
August 31, 2016 at 23:03
Oh that's for sure - but there was a big crash afterwards. The bubble effect.
August 31, 2016 at 10:30
The problem here is that without the human perspective, there is no one to interpret the meaning of these words, "matter exists". So it's really point...
August 31, 2016 at 00:47
That's the point then, once it's done, the act has been externalized, and you're constrained by that external fact, prior to this you are not constrai...
August 30, 2016 at 10:56
This is why you've been denying the distinction I've been trying to make then. Tell me, do you believe that there is a difference between casting your...
August 30, 2016 at 01:15
I see you haven't read that little bit which Wayfarer recently referred. If so, perhaps you wouldn't be so sure that we're starting to have a good und...
August 29, 2016 at 20:33
Perhaps, based merely on the quoted passage, but then you went on to criticise the basis of my categorical distinction. What you wrote was not an anal...
August 29, 2016 at 10:54
And of course, we shouldn't forget that the United States has always been a close ally with Israel. So the following statement is really nonsense:
August 29, 2016 at 02:13
Hostility of Arab nations toward the U.S. did not begin in 2001. Were you alive in the late seventies during the Iranian revolution, and the hundreds ...
August 29, 2016 at 02:04
This is the nature of conceptualization, the more specific is explained by reference to the more general. I do not believe that this leads to an infin...
August 29, 2016 at 01:46
If you've convinced yourself of that, I won't bother to argue the point anymore. But now all you've done is defined logic as any type of association. ...
August 29, 2016 at 00:20
So, what are you saying, that there is potentially an infinite number of different ways to truly describe any particular situation?
August 28, 2016 at 20:32
The big bang theory is a consequence of space-time conception. If you separate space from time in this way, the big bang no longer makes sense.
August 28, 2016 at 17:04
Here's a passage from that article on "Logic, DNA and Poetry". Although the focus is on "context", notice the last line, "...to select between words.....
August 28, 2016 at 12:56
Why not, if you define "qualia" as "what it's like"? Clearly, the computer, with the software must recognize what the image is like, to make the deter...
August 28, 2016 at 12:08
Ok, you refuse to acknowledge your contradictions. Let me explain this issue. It's quite straight forward, but metaphysically important. Your claim th...
August 28, 2016 at 11:55
See, here you approach the same contradiction. How can you set out a set of random thoughts without thinking? Any act of setting out thoughts is neces...
August 28, 2016 at 02:51
Any sot of recognition indicates the existence of what you call "what it's like" knowledge, "qualia". That's what recognition is based in, knowing wha...
August 27, 2016 at 21:45
As a cause of change in the wold. logic is a formal cause. But as we know, there are causes of causes, and thinking is the cause of this formal cause,...
August 27, 2016 at 11:57
This is false though, logical principles do not govern thinking. We choose which principles we wish to apply, and some may not be logical . You even a...
August 27, 2016 at 02:02
That's the ambiguity I referred to earlier. "Chance" when speaking about a future event, refers to a possibility. This could be interpreted as probabi...
August 27, 2016 at 01:51
Tendency and intention are two distinct things. Tendency is a leaning toward a particular action, it might be a habit or something like that. Intentio...
August 27, 2016 at 01:32
No, you are redefining "logic" to suit your purpose. Logic doesn't constrain our thinking, it is thinking, a particular type of thinking, reasoning. W...
August 27, 2016 at 01:22
I don't see any infinite regress here. Let's say that there is something within me which I call "self", and this self experiences. Why would there nee...
August 27, 2016 at 01:11
I have no problem with "probability", I believe it is very useful. What I have a problem with is "chance", or "randomness". Do you see the difference?...
August 27, 2016 at 00:34
Could someone explain to me what is wrong with the homuncular approach? People speak as if this is some big fallacy, but until the homuncular approach...
August 27, 2016 at 00:08
Addendum: that is what apokrisis calls demystifying metaphysics.
August 26, 2016 at 10:58
Yeah, apokrisis introduces a Logic which is actually illogical because it is supposed to exist independently of any mind, and this Logic is what struc...
August 26, 2016 at 10:48
Yes, I see your point, but now we're not talking about the meaning of "intelligibility", we're talking about the meaning of "the world". I don't think...
August 26, 2016 at 01:52
If you think that this demystifies the metaphysics of intention and purpose, you're in a dream. How does a vague explanation full of ambiguities, equi...
August 25, 2016 at 10:41
Your talking about "laws" now, here, and we were talking about randomness. Randomness is a failure to follow any laws. So you appear to be trying to c...
August 25, 2016 at 02:12
Science is a deeply metaphysical "exercise"? How so? Making an ontic commitment is just that, making an ontic commitment, it is not an exercise. Deter...
August 25, 2016 at 01:54
From an idealist perspective, "the world" is something created within our minds, and so it is necessarily intelligible. We exist as independent minds ...
August 24, 2016 at 10:51
This all depends on what type of existence you think that knowledge has, which is determined by your metaphysical perspective. Some would say that kno...
August 23, 2016 at 10:22
Why would you say that thinking of the present as a division between future and past involves "cutting into the flow of time"? It is not even establis...
August 23, 2016 at 02:15
If the government isn't going to tell you what's right and what's wrong, then who is going to tell you this, your mother? If everyone's own mother dec...
August 23, 2016 at 00:55
But it's not a case of what the human form can become, it's a case of what it should become. And this produces the problem of subjectivity. There are ...
August 22, 2016 at 11:12
Then you don't understand the point. Probability, possibility, and chance, only exist in relation to an intentional being. That is why it is necessary...
August 22, 2016 at 00:20